Property Atlas

County hazard profile

Rutherford, NC

North Carolina · pop. 64,379 · FIPS 37161

Relatively Low
FEMA risk rating · RATING
Strong Wind
dominant hazard
$24M
modeled expected annual loss/yr

Expected annual loss · all 3,232 U.S. counties

among the lowest nationally

national median $15M/yr Rutherford $24M

A real dollar distribution: most counties sit far below a handful of high-exposure ones. A FEMA model of annual loss, not a record of disasters.

FEMA national percentile scores

FEMA/CDC score each county 0–100 against all others — the score is the national rank (RATING). Higher risk and vulnerability are worse; higher resilience is better.

FEMA risk indexRelatively Low 72.68/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (73rd percentile)
Social vulnerabilityRelatively High 72.46/100
national median ~50 near the national middle (72nd percentile)
Community resilienceRelatively Low 26.18/100
national median ~50 lower than most counties (26th percentile)

Recorded · NFIP flood claims RECORDED

Realized flood losses in Rutherford

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid 117 flood-insurance claims totaling $8.1M in Rutherford since 1980. The costliest year was 2024 ($6.7M paid).

Flood-insurance dollars paid by year of loss

1980: $0 paid 1994: $12,951 paid 1995: $4,842 paid 1996: $315,138 paid 2001: $18,803 paid 2004: $150,574 paid 2005: $43,090 paid 2006: $44,252 paid 2009: $14,926 paid 2010: $27,695 paid 2013: $171,234 paid 2016: $20,801 paid 2017: $0 paid 2018: $236,957 paid 2019: $40,378 paid 2020: $248,676 paid 2021: $37,388 paid 2024: $6,665,198 paid 2024 · $6.7M 1980 2024
$8.1M
total paid
$68,828
average claim
$583K
largest single claim
75%
in high-risk flood zones (A/V)

RECORDED — these are actual paid NFIP claims (a redacted census from OpenFEMA), not a model. They are the realized counterpart to the FEMA risk score above: one is what happened and got paid, the other is what a model predicts.

Scope: these are flood-insurance claims, so they undercount flooding where owners were uninsured — read this as "what NFIP paid here," not "every flood." County-level totals, not a per-property or per-address verdict. Verify a specific address and buy coverage at FloodSmart.gov; the underlying data is OpenFEMA NFIP Redacted Claims.

What these figures mean

  • RATING — the FEMA risk score, expected loss, social vulnerability, and resilience are FEMA/CDC models, not records of disasters that happened. The 0–100 scores are already national percentiles.
  • MEASURED — population is a recorded census figure.
  • COMPUTED — the county's rank within the dollar-loss distribution is our placement over the 3,232 counties.
  • CONTEXT — the note below is framing, not a measurement.

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What this is — and is not

This is FEMA/CDC modeled hazard exposure for Rutherford, NC and where it ranks among U.S. counties. It is not a verdict on whether Rutherford is a good or bad place to live — hazard exposure is not place quality, and a county can't opt out of its geography. It is not a per-property or per-address risk assessment, not a prediction of any specific disaster, and not insurance advice. For site-specific risk use a per-property assessment; for the underlying model see FEMA National Risk Index.